Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. Well, the news today, I would
Speaker 1: say good news. It's better news. How about that? Not
Speaker 1: a lot of good news floating around the entire area
Speaker 1: this week. But firefighters have begun to slow the spread
Speaker 1: of these fires. The ferocious winds have died down. Thank god.
Speaker 1: We are still in a wind event. Unlike we heard
Speaker 1: from the press conference, it is not still a historic
Speaker 1: wind event according to Karen Bassett's what it was, it
Speaker 1: is not. We're dealing with wins that are more reminiscent
Speaker 1: of a typical Santa Ana wind event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the behavior, the fire behavior we're going to see
Speaker 2: today is not the unprecedented kind that we saw on
Speaker 2: Tuesday afternoon. This is the better of the two scenarios where, yes,
Speaker 2: we still do have red flag conditions. The fire still
Speaker 2: could behave erradically, but not explode like we saw over
Speaker 2: the last couple of days. Quick updates the Palisades fire.
Speaker 2: They said this morning seventeen two hundred and thirty four acres.
Speaker 2: It is moving slowly, it's still growing, and in fact
Speaker 2: it's actually growing way out into the mountains. It's no
Speaker 2: longer gone from the hills to the ocean. It's moving
Speaker 2: back deeper into the hillsides, which means that it is
Speaker 2: moving east towards the four or five slowly and north
Speaker 2: up and over the hill towards the valley.
Speaker 3: So they are going to be working in that.
Speaker 2: But in terms of the damage, they said probably into
Speaker 2: the thousands the number of structures damaged or destroyed. And
Speaker 2: then in the Eaten fire over in Altadena, the acreage
Speaker 2: has held steady at about ten thy six hundred, and
Speaker 2: the good news was La City Fire said most of
Speaker 2: the growth in that fire has stopped. There are still
Speaker 2: homes and businesses, other structures that are on fire at
Speaker 2: the very least smoldering. Over a thousand structures, they said,
Speaker 2: damaged or destroyed by the Eaten Fire.
Speaker 1: The animals cannot be overlooked from this one. There are
Speaker 1: animals suffering from burns looking at the eat and fire
Speaker 1: in particular in Altadena right now, Kevin McManus works for
Speaker 1: Pasadena Humane Society joins us now with the state of
Speaker 1: Affairs there, and we're talking about large animals, Kevin, as
Speaker 1: well as pets, right that's correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we took it. We have taken in nearly three
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty animals since the fire broke out, everything
Speaker 4: from dogs and cats to we helped to evacuate a
Speaker 4: lot of horses, with a pig here on site right now, chickens.
Speaker 4: So yeah, any kind of animal in our area we're
Speaker 4: trying to help.
Speaker 2: Have you gotten animals that appeared abandoned or that we're
Speaker 2: just kind of running through neighborhoods, or are these people
Speaker 2: who have had their homes they had to evacuate and
Speaker 2: they needed a place to get them.
Speaker 4: Overwhelmingly it's been people bringing their own animals into us,
Speaker 4: which is the better case scenario there. Uh So, people
Speaker 4: evacuated safely with their pets found that they could not
Speaker 4: bring their pets to the particular shelter they were going to,
Speaker 4: or you know, couldn't bring them wherever they they were headed.
Speaker 4: So we're caring for those animals until you know, people
Speaker 4: can get back on their feet find out if they
Speaker 4: still have a home to go back to. We did get,
Speaker 4: starting maybe mid afternoon yesterday, handful of clearly like stray animals,
Speaker 4: and you know, we don't know to whom they belong,
Speaker 4: but a lot of those did have evidence of injuries,
Speaker 4: you know, some burned victims, some smoke anhalation. So so
Speaker 4: we've been caring for those, uh, the harder cases. Here
Speaker 4: at the shelter, we have a dedicated veterinary team and
Speaker 4: they're they're working hard to make sure that everybody's safe.
Speaker 5: Are you equipped to deal with that?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you put I'm envisioning and I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be cute here because I just don't know,
Speaker 1: but envisioning like little oxygen masks over the little faces.
Speaker 1: I mean, are you equipped to deal with like mass
Speaker 1: injuries to animal I mean, maybe not mass, but dozens
Speaker 1: of injuries to animals at your locations?
Speaker 4: We are, I mean we have we have five veterinarians
Speaker 4: on staff and a whole host of veterinary like r
Speaker 4: vts and veterinary technicians, and we do have a lot
Speaker 4: of high tech equipment. So those asked oxygen masks, we
Speaker 4: do have those, and we have oxygen chambers where we
Speaker 4: have a couple of cats in right now to make
Speaker 4: sure that they that they can still breathe.
Speaker 1: And then if people want to help, are you taking volunteers?
Speaker 1: Are you taking donations. I know sometimes humane centers look
Speaker 1: for you know, clean fresh sheets or towels or what
Speaker 1: have you. Do you need anything or volunteers or anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: Well, our highest party right now is money. To be honest,
Speaker 4: monetary donations help us to you know, get the very
Speaker 4: specific care that these animals need. But if people have
Speaker 4: in kind donations that they'd like to bring our way,
Speaker 4: of course we're accepting.
Speaker 6: Everything we do.
Speaker 4: Our kind of priority list right now as wet and
Speaker 4: dried dog and cat food, and that will be used
Speaker 4: to help people who are in the community who have
Speaker 4: their pets who just like they maybe left without their
Speaker 4: pet food, that kind of thing. New crates are also
Speaker 4: super helpful or you know, very clean, well not well
Speaker 4: used cranes, clean blankets, clean towels, those are kind of
Speaker 4: our priority like in kind items that we're looking for.
Speaker 3: I have a small, little soft crate that I might
Speaker 3: be able to donate that he didn't use it. Oh, interesting,
Speaker 3: Just a general question.
Speaker 2: If people see animals that are still I mean still,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be other animals that are still wandering around
Speaker 2: trying to find you know, trying to find home or
Speaker 2: owners that were burned out of their own places. Do
Speaker 2: you get the majority of them? Are they micro chipped
Speaker 2: when you see them, or what kind of percentage are
Speaker 2: we looking at in terms of being able to place
Speaker 2: them and find the owners.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 4: Of the handful of stray animals that have come in
Speaker 4: over the last twenty four hours, a handful of them
Speaker 4: are microchips, and so we're attempting to get in touch
Speaker 4: with those folks or with those pets.
Speaker 3: Folks.
Speaker 4: A lot unfortunately don't have any kind of identification, which
Speaker 4: is a really good reminder for everyone to make sure.
Speaker 6: Your dog has a collar and your cat.
Speaker 4: Has a collar and tags and microchipping is so so
Speaker 4: important to help, not only just in crises like this,
Speaker 4: but just in general. If your pet ever gets out,
Speaker 4: microchip is the easiest way to get them back home
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 3: All right, Kevin, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Good luck today.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: You've met Kevin McManus, their prcom manager for Passaging a
Speaker 2: Humane Society.
Speaker 5: All right, coming up next, not out of the woods
Speaker 5: just yet.
Speaker 1: We will get a meteorologist on to tell us what
Speaker 1: we can expect today as well as next week. The
Speaker 1: forecast does call for more so we'll get an update
Speaker 1: on that as well as.
Speaker 3: The sun Rose.
Speaker 2: Today we got even more images of the destruction from
Speaker 2: the different fires burning throughout La County. The wind event
Speaker 2: itself is starting to taper off. We are still under
Speaker 2: red flag warning conditions because of the very low humidity
Speaker 2: and because of the winds that are higher than normal
Speaker 2: for this time of year.
Speaker 1: As much as the Palisades has just been reduced to ashes,
Speaker 1: there is still quite a bit of active flame which
Speaker 1: is why you're seeing still zero percent containment there, not
Speaker 1: just specific Palisades, but Malibu as well. Still worried about
Speaker 1: areas outside the Palisades as you get into Santa Monica,
Speaker 1: Brentwood areas. This thing has reverse course. Don't know if
Speaker 1: it was backfire was set to have it moved back
Speaker 1: up the mountain, but that is definitely the focus today.
Speaker 2: We are going to go back to Michael Monks a
Speaker 2: little bit later. He's out in the Altadena fire area,
Speaker 2: the Eat and Fire, talking with some of the people
Speaker 2: and looking at some of the destruction there in the
Speaker 2: Altadena neighborhood. We can always take your talkbacks, if you
Speaker 2: have comments about what's been going on. You can always
Speaker 2: leave us a message on the talkback feature on the
Speaker 2: iHeart app. Just sit that little microphone button while you're
Speaker 2: listening and you can send us a message. But we
Speaker 2: wanted to get back to Max Siparis, News Nation meteorologist
Speaker 2: we spoke with yesterday, and Max we talked about the
Speaker 2: peak of the winds happening late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
Speaker 2: Last night things died down significantly and as of right
Speaker 2: now it seems pretty calm. When do we see the
Speaker 2: end of this wind event coming?
Speaker 6: Looks like it will take us into tomorrow afternoon when
Speaker 6: we have that wind advisory letting well. Rather, the wind
Speaker 6: advisory ends later today, but we're still going to see
Speaker 6: those elevated winds through Thursday, through parts of Friday in
Speaker 6: the morning, and then by the afternoon. So by tomorrow afternoon,
Speaker 6: I think we're only seeing gus ten to twenty miles
Speaker 6: per hour, which of course is much lower than what
Speaker 6: we saw yesterday morning, even much lower than what we
Speaker 6: saw this morning too. But obviously the saving grace here
Speaker 6: that the winds have dropped low enough that we're starting
Speaker 6: to see, yes, those planes out dropping the suppressants, those
Speaker 6: choppers dropping the water hitting those rurals not rural, but
Speaker 6: more hard to get to areas in the canyons and
Speaker 6: in at the peaks. So it is improvement, but still
Speaker 6: a very challenging situation. Of course. At last Teck, the
Speaker 6: total acreage burned among those five fires that are still burning,
Speaker 6: the largest of which are out of control, as you
Speaker 6: mentioned zero percent containment is at twenty nine thousand acres,
Speaker 6: which is nearly half the size of Washington we see,
Speaker 6: just to put that into perspective for our listeners, So
Speaker 6: it is a massive amount of area. It's more area
Speaker 6: that's burned than the Mountain Fire in Ventura County in
Speaker 6: November and the Franklin Fire in Malibu last month combined,
Speaker 6: and that took weeks for those fires to spread that much.
Speaker 6: This I'm only taking forty eight hours or so. So again,
Speaker 6: those winds really a worst case scenario to fan these
Speaker 6: flames and spread the embers a lot more quickly than
Speaker 6: if they were lighter. So again, by tomorrow afternoon, the
Speaker 6: winds will I'm not going to stay be calm, but
Speaker 6: they'll be certainly much more manageable.
Speaker 1: And then as we look to next week, I heard
Speaker 1: the winds will be back early next week.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I'm hoping that another weaker weather system that'll
Speaker 6: miss us to the south will bring it the humidity
Speaker 6: up a little bit.
Speaker 5: So still too.
Speaker 6: Early to say if we're going to see another issuance
Speaker 6: of the elevated, critical or extreme wildfire weather risk that
Speaker 6: that Noah had issued preceding this event as well. So
Speaker 6: if it does pan out that we are seeing the
Speaker 6: recipe shape back up, they'll be served to issue as
Speaker 6: much notice as possible for folks to because again, just devastating,
Speaker 6: but at least there was notice. If there's any sort
Speaker 6: of silver lining here, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, Max Suparis, News Nation Meteorologist, thanks for checking
Speaker 2: in with us today.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're welcome. Thinking about you guys.
Speaker 5: Thanks, you appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, you know, we were
Speaker 1: talking about rebuilding and how long it's going to take
Speaker 1: to rebuild areas like Altadena and the Palisades, and you know,
Speaker 1: something that not a lot of people are talking about
Speaker 1: is the fact that the Olympics are upon us. The
Speaker 1: Olympics are going to be here in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: and you think about what goes into the Olympics. A
Speaker 1: lot of infrastructure, Sure, one of the reasons we were
Speaker 1: picked is because we already have a lot of infrastructure
Speaker 1: with arenas and fields and things of that nature. However,
Speaker 1: a lot needs to be built when you're talking about
Speaker 1: just the rudimentary things that go along with the Olympics,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be unconscionable really to proceed at
Speaker 1: the pace they're going to need to proceed at to
Speaker 1: build all of that to get ready for the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight Olympics, while people in the Palisades, for example,
Speaker 1: or waiting, you know, five years for building permits.
Speaker 2: And I think that I think some of that stuff
Speaker 2: is going to be if politicians have any amount of
Speaker 2: intelligence and concern for the people that they say they're
Speaker 2: going to serve, they're going to do away with some
Speaker 2: of that stuff because they need to get that rebuilding
Speaker 2: done quickly.
Speaker 5: Right, they should be cutting all that red tape.
Speaker 3: They should be.
Speaker 2: The other thing is, and I think about it when
Speaker 2: you were saying that, I'm thinking of the again, not
Speaker 2: to get into the poetry, but there's an allegory of
Speaker 2: when fire sweeps through a forest, it's it's a rebirth.
Speaker 2: It's a rebirth, right, it's a continuous cycle it's what happens.
Speaker 2: That's how that's how mother nature has been for a
Speaker 2: long time. This is different, obviously because we're talking about
Speaker 2: people's homes. But in an economic sense, there is something
Speaker 2: that grows out of this. There is something that comes
Speaker 2: out of the other side of a disaster like this,
Speaker 2: which is the rebuilding, the reconstruction.
Speaker 6: The.
Speaker 5: Money that's made locally.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, the economic reinvestment in these neighborhoods as they
Speaker 2: begin to rebuild, which I think is you know, we're
Speaker 2: months and a couple of years away from seeing the
Speaker 2: true benefit of that, but that the opportunity is there.
Speaker 2: This is not this is one of those things where, yes,
Speaker 2: we will rebuild, these neighborhoods will regrow. I don't know
Speaker 2: what they're going to look like in the future, but
Speaker 2: that they will come back, and that that kind of
Speaker 2: you know, the I don't even want to say silver
Speaker 2: lining because it's too much of a trope, but there
Speaker 2: is something on the other side of it that can
Speaker 2: be good. There can be opportunities for people to re
Speaker 2: energize their own economic health through something as devastating as this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the main examples that I
Speaker 1: can remember is Hurricane Katrina and the way that New
Speaker 1: Orleans was able to rebuild and the great stories that
Speaker 1: came out of that after just the utter devastation in
Speaker 1: there alongside that.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, there are a holes who will try to take
Speaker 2: advantage of peak, of course, so I mean we.
Speaker 5: Will take them out back and shoot them.
Speaker 2: Sheriff Luna said today that the arrests there have been
Speaker 2: over twenty arrests of people who have been looting, and
Speaker 2: I don't know why, even tongue in cheek, he doesn't
Speaker 2: say you're putting your life at risk because I have
Speaker 2: ordered the deputies to shoot you twice.
Speaker 3: Once in the hand and then once in the heart.
Speaker 5: The hand first, just to make you bleed and feel
Speaker 5: pain a little.
Speaker 8: Yeah, hey, Gary and Shannon Lisa here, just curious. Have
Speaker 8: you guys heard of any charities or support groups that
Speaker 8: are sending food to the firefighters and police officers and
Speaker 8: even the newscasters that are out there giving us all
Speaker 8: this information. Let us know, thanks guys, You.
Speaker 3: Bet newscasters are fine.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: In fact, David Muir doesn't want any more food because
Speaker 1: he used a clothes pin to tighten the waste of
Speaker 1: his turnout.
Speaker 9: If you have not during his live shot yesterday. If
Speaker 9: you have not seen the image David, who's been on
Speaker 9: our show and he's great at what he does. But
Speaker 9: here's the thing. You've got to think about the audience.
Speaker 9: You got to read the room, you got to think
Speaker 9: about what's going on. We both done television.
Speaker 1: We both know at times what they'll do is they'll
Speaker 1: take a clothes pin to the back of your jacket
Speaker 1: or your shirt or your dress or whatever because it'll
Speaker 1: peer boxy on TV.
Speaker 5: So they'll do that.
Speaker 1: But if you're out on a fire scene wearing firefighter turnouts,
Speaker 1: probably forego the clothes pin to give yourself a waste.
Speaker 2: It gave him a waste. It kept the turnout tight
Speaker 2: across his chest, right. I mean, the guy works out.
Speaker 2: If you see him do the evening news on ABC,
Speaker 2: looks great. He does that thing where he leans on
Speaker 2: his right arm and it's like he's got his biceps
Speaker 2: flecked the entire time a moment.
Speaker 3: I do so.
Speaker 2: Anyway, back to Lisa's point, Yes, there are a couple.
Speaker 2: In fact, they mentioned one of them today in that
Speaker 2: news conference this morning, and it was the LA Fire
Speaker 2: Department Foundation, the Los Angeles Fire Department, foundation specifically for
Speaker 2: LA Fire Department, but there's also a statewide fire foundation
Speaker 2: called the California Fire Foundation. Both of them are five
Speaker 2: to one C three's both of them. You can search
Speaker 2: on the internet very quickly. We will throw links up
Speaker 2: for you, so that is easy. You can just click
Speaker 2: through and get those. But yeah, there are plenty of
Speaker 2: fire foundation style charities that will be raising funds to
Speaker 2: help support some of these firefighters that have been out
Speaker 2: on the lines for so long.
Speaker 5: I don't know how to feel.
Speaker 1: I'm conflicted on all the coverage about the celebrities who
Speaker 1: have lost their homes or were evacuated.
Speaker 3: It's fine. I just saw that too.
Speaker 5: It is notable.
Speaker 1: It is something to talk about, but not something to
Speaker 1: give more attention to than everybody else.
Speaker 5: I don't think I feel awful.
Speaker 2: They've lost their home, and some of them, I think
Speaker 2: Billy Crystal and his wife lost their home and they've
Speaker 2: been there for decades. Sure, okay, yes there's but what
Speaker 2: about for every Billy Crystal or Jamie Lee Curtis.
Speaker 5: There's a Billy Johnson or Jamie Jones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably twenty five thirty of them. For every celebrity
Speaker 2: that lost their house, somewhere else, so let's keep our
Speaker 2: foot off the gas when it comes to bast My
Speaker 2: car was covered with ash in the parking garage.
Speaker 5: Because you were closer to the entrance. Yes, but still
Speaker 5: I mean it was I did not notice it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really it was really weird considering it
Speaker 2: was underground, right, but the.
Speaker 1: Way it blows into those underground garages like that.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we will always take your talkback messages. Let us
Speaker 2: know what it is that you're thinking about. When you're
Speaker 2: listening on the iHeart app, you just hit a little
Speaker 2: microphone button that's right there, a little picture of it,
Speaker 2: and he leaves us a message that comes right here.
Speaker 2: If you're listening on an enabled device and elect enabled device,
Speaker 2: all you have to do is say, hey, send a
Speaker 2: message to KFI and then she'll record or he'll go. However,
Speaker 2: you guys would do it, and don't make that every
Speaker 2: time I bring her up, you, my wife, every woman
Speaker 2: I know, they just get that face.
Speaker 5: Well, it's annoying.
Speaker 3: Go on. It's again a common refrain.
Speaker 1: I don't like that there's another woman in the house.
Speaker 1: You can change the voice constantly. I don't think he'd
Speaker 1: want to change her voice. I think he likes her
Speaker 1: voice the way it is.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's more about you. Oh really, Oh boy.
Speaker 10: Shannon, I just want to say thank you for what
Speaker 10: you said. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Speaker 6: Gosh.
Speaker 10: I had the same thoughts, and I thought that I
Speaker 10: was just wrong about it, but you validated my feelings.
Speaker 10: So thanks for speaking for many of us that feel
Speaker 10: action is the way forward and that the funny stuff
Speaker 10: isn't what everyone wants to hear right now.
Speaker 3: Thank you. In terms of the poetry at those news conferences.
Speaker 2: The other thing is, and I think that's an important
Speaker 2: point to make as well, is if you're not to
Speaker 2: directly even if you're not I should say, directly affected
Speaker 2: by the fires, your house has not been damaged or
Speaker 2: destroyed or been evacuated for a couple days, or your
Speaker 2: powers out or something. If you're one of the other
Speaker 2: millions of people who is not directly impacted by this,
Speaker 2: don't just go off I feel bad. Do something about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, and it could be anything that you want.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's you donate to the LA Fire Foundation or
Speaker 2: the California Fire Foundation, or you donate like I did,
Speaker 2: or like I said. The you know that empty pet crate,
Speaker 2: the dog crate to the passad In a humane society,
Speaker 2: it's the action is the way to move through this,
Speaker 2: not not.
Speaker 3: There's time for poetry and art later on.
Speaker 5: So Peter wasn't into his crate.
Speaker 10: Huh?
Speaker 5: What if he needs to be transported, don't you have
Speaker 5: to put him in the crate.
Speaker 3: I have a bigger crate that he sleeps in.
Speaker 5: Okay, that could be used for transport.
Speaker 3: No, that would be way too big.
Speaker 5: Well, then what's the deal with the crate that you
Speaker 5: were going to do?
Speaker 3: Where am I going to transport him?
Speaker 5: Well, when he guests has to go to the vet, I.
Speaker 3: Put him in the car. That's how we travel.
Speaker 5: Really, Yeah, it doesn't seem safe.
Speaker 6: Why not?
Speaker 3: It's a five minute drive to the vet.
Speaker 5: There may become a time in Peter's life when he
Speaker 5: needs a crate.
Speaker 3: There could be a time in Peter's life when he
Speaker 3: needs a crate.
Speaker 5: You should probably keep the crate, is all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I have a different one. That's why I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's a why have one that he used maybe twice
Speaker 2: and then I got a slightly larger one nice because
Speaker 2: he grew.
Speaker 1: So he's one of those babies that just has everything.
Speaker 3: All the time.
Speaker 11: Gary Shannon, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Nothing?
Speaker 11: This is big j from Compton A. Shannon. I'm going
Speaker 11: to say this. You are a G for almost cursing.
Speaker 11: Yeah on the air. You know what a G is
Speaker 11: A straight gangster. And yeah, people stop voting for the
Speaker 11: same people that's not doing you right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, straight G, straight G A high praise.
Speaker 2: The updates that we got this morning about the fires
Speaker 2: were as good news as we could probably get in
Speaker 2: that the Pacific Palisades fire has slowed significantly, and then
Speaker 2: over in Altadena and Pasadena, the Eaten Fire has most
Speaker 2: of the growth has been significantly stopped, but in its
Speaker 2: wake just uttered devastation in some of those areas.
Speaker 1: Michael Monks has eyes on that devastation right now with
Speaker 1: the Altadena fire. Joins us from the corner of El
Speaker 1: Molina and Mariposa and Michael, I've seen some images come
Speaker 1: out from around your area of people just collapsing in
Speaker 1: tears over what they're seeing today in the light of day.
Speaker 12: I just walked past that scene in person of a
Speaker 12: woman being comforted by someone else as she just fell
Speaker 12: to her knees, bent over, looking at a distance at
Speaker 12: a building that is no longer standing, And so you
Speaker 12: can imagine the impact the emotional wallop that that packed
Speaker 12: when you see finally what you feared the most, that
Speaker 12: everything you've poured yourself into is now gone. And another
Speaker 12: very sad image that I just saw, a man had
Speaker 12: rescued a cat from up in the mountains nearby. And
Speaker 12: this poor kitty had been placed in a milk crate
Speaker 12: and covered up and covered in black and was just
Speaker 12: screaming in distress. And this guy on a bike was
Speaker 12: racing to get him somewhere to where that cat can
Speaker 12: get some help. There are so many smoldering pieces of
Speaker 12: fire around this neighborhood. Still the worst appears to be
Speaker 12: over as far as the fire, but the devastation has
Speaker 12: still not been processed. I just talked to a family
Speaker 12: who has been here for generations. He was staring at
Speaker 12: his grandmother's former home that is now a pile of rubber.
Speaker 12: Excuse me, rebel. They had fled the area and came back,
Speaker 12: not sure if they still had a house, but they did,
Speaker 12: and they grabbed a few things that are now walking
Speaker 12: on foot because the police and the fire department they're
Speaker 12: not letting people drive in this area obviously, so folks
Speaker 12: are parking pretty far away and having to hike it
Speaker 12: up here in order to see what they can salvage. Fortunately,
Speaker 12: that family lives on Madison Avenue, and I spoke to
Speaker 12: some folks here who are still hard at work on
Speaker 12: their block, which miraculously still stands. But it's not just
Speaker 12: a miracle that has these houses looking like they did
Speaker 12: even last week, except for a little bit of damage.
Speaker 12: One of the cars has gone up in flames aside
Speaker 12: of one of the walls. This group of neighbors together
Speaker 12: and tended to every single property that they could while
Speaker 12: fires raged around them. One of the ladies here says
Speaker 12: that they even used the almond milk out of the refrigerator,
Speaker 12: the perrier, they had in their garage, anything they had
Speaker 12: at their disposal, and they were racing from home to
Speaker 12: home to put out the flames as best they could.
Speaker 12: Also on this block is a historic Victorian home that
Speaker 12: is known as the Woodbury story House, and it was
Speaker 12: the home of Captain Frederick Woodbury, who's one of the
Speaker 12: founders of this city. All of this land once belonged
Speaker 12: to that estate, and so much of it now is
Speaker 12: ground again. But that nineteenth century Victorian mansion still stands
Speaker 12: on Madison Avenue because of the work all of the
Speaker 12: neighbors put in here.
Speaker 2: Who's are people driving around? I can hear vehicles in
Speaker 2: the background, but who's who's out? What's They're just people
Speaker 2: kind of lookie lose. I mean, you mentioned the woman clearly.
Speaker 2: It sounds like she had lost property, lost her home
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 12: But you are seeing mostly emergency vehicles. You might have
Speaker 12: even heard a horn there. You are also seeing some
Speaker 12: stilly and some members of the like me. I just
Speaker 12: took a long walk around the business district of Altadena
Speaker 12: to take it in get.
Speaker 3: Some post of post on social media. It is at
Speaker 3: that station.
Speaker 12: Everywhere there aren't a lot of people walking around. I
Speaker 12: don't know if that's because they're doing a good job
Speaker 12: of keeping people out. You don't have business here. This
Speaker 12: is the type of scene that I can imagine people
Speaker 12: wanting to take in in person, just out of curiosity
Speaker 12: or to share in the sense of loss. But there
Speaker 12: aren't a lot of regular joes walking around. I've only
Speaker 12: seen a dozen, maybe a little more than that, walking around.
Speaker 12: I've not seen a lot of civilian vehicles. It's mostly
Speaker 12: emergency vehicles or vehicles that are servicing those emergency vehicles
Speaker 12: like fuel trucks. Otherwise, it is just a scene of
Speaker 12: absolute destruction here all across the business district, you know,
Speaker 12: Altadena right here, especially in this part of it. It's
Speaker 12: one of those places in this major metropolitan area where
Speaker 12: you can kind of forget you're in a major metropolitan area.
Speaker 12: You can kind of lose yourself in the small town
Speaker 12: charm of a place like Altadena, and all of that
Speaker 12: is just wiped.
Speaker 3: Away right now, all right, Michael, thank you, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Guys, Michael Monk's there in the midst of some of
Speaker 2: the destruction from the Eton fire out there in Pasadena
Speaker 2: and Altadena.
Speaker 1: Thousand people are under evacuation orders or warnings as these
Speaker 1: wildfires continue to burn for big ones zero percent containment.
Speaker 1: The wins have died down, which we anticipated, and that
Speaker 1: has become a reality, and that hopefully will give the
Speaker 1: firefighters some time to get ahead of these things, because
Speaker 1: that certainly wasn't the case.
Speaker 5: Is they took off Tuesday and yesterday.
Speaker 2: Gene Smart, the actress, just won a Golden Globe for
Speaker 2: hacks made a plea for networks and TV streaming companies
Speaker 2: to reconsider airing award shows in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: And actually, so you can't. I don't think you can't, No,
Speaker 2: she said, with all due respect during Hollywood Season of celebration,
Speaker 2: I hope any of the network's televising upcoming awards would
Speaker 2: seriously consider not televising them. She said last night on
Speaker 2: X They should donate the or and donate the revenue
Speaker 2: they would have garnered to the victims of the fire
Speaker 2: slid firefighters.
Speaker 1: Why don't they have a go old fashioned telethon? Do
Speaker 1: people do that anymore? Bring the celebrities out that would
Speaker 1: be at the award shows and just have them in
Speaker 1: playing clothes and not glam squatted up, and bring out
Speaker 1: real people and have a telethon and have the kind
Speaker 1: of numbers, at least more numbers nationwide than you would
Speaker 1: for this sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Well, and think about the option.
Speaker 2: I mean, we talked a second ago, not too long ago,
Speaker 2: about the this is not the celebrities are going to
Speaker 2: make headlines, obviously, but it's not all about them.
Speaker 5: But they could be instrumental in helping the effort.
Speaker 2: They could be Imagine if you had the people in
Speaker 2: the Pacific Palisades, whose homes or whose names you would
Speaker 2: recognize who lost their homes, standing in front of their
Speaker 2: homes or what's left and saying, hey, this am I
Speaker 2: got the same thing as Joe blowout in Pasadena. We're
Speaker 2: in the same position now and we need help.
Speaker 1: Well, there are no finer firefighters, and you're going to
Speaker 1: find in La City, La County.
Speaker 5: They're just the best in the business.
Speaker 1: They have the experience, they have the heart, and I've
Speaker 1: got to believe they've been super frustrated with being against
Speaker 1: a wind event of an unprecedented nature like we saw
Speaker 1: blow in here Tuesday morning, with those mountain waves just
Speaker 1: crashing into communities. La Fire Department David Ortiz's Fire Departments.
Speaker 1: David Ortiz joins us now and David seems like the
Speaker 1: frustration is palpable at this point when it comes to
Speaker 1: what y'all have been up against all week.
Speaker 7: That is true, it's been very frustrating for our firefighters. Typically,
Speaker 7: firefighters tend to be people that are highly motivated and
Speaker 7: they put their heart into what they do, and we
Speaker 7: live in these communities where we're fighting these fires, and
Speaker 7: it is just heartbreaking to see the amount of a
Speaker 7: devastrate and a devastation and destruction that this Calisates fire
Speaker 7: has caused.
Speaker 2: We know that we have crews coming in from other states,
Speaker 2: from all over northern California as well. How does it
Speaker 2: work in terms of getting some of those people on
Speaker 2: the lines to give a break to the people who've
Speaker 2: been working since Tuesday afternoon.
Speaker 7: What we have in the state of California, and you
Speaker 7: mentioned the state nutel aid program is something that the
Speaker 7: City of Los Angeles and our local area coordinator, which
Speaker 7: is Ali County Fire Department, is something we participate all
Speaker 7: year round. Our firefighters are part of the system, and
Speaker 7: we send resources all over the state of California, particularly
Speaker 7: in the spring and the summer. We have fire engines
Speaker 7: in Northern California, our strike teams, and we help them
Speaker 7: when their fire season starts earlier in the year, and
Speaker 7: then in the fall in the winter when we need resources,
Speaker 7: they reciprocate and they send their crews out here. So
Speaker 7: we integrate very well. We practice and this is all
Speaker 7: since the nineteen thirties nineteen forties, after the bell Or Fire,
Speaker 7: we learned that no single fire department can stand on
Speaker 7: its own, and we need each other and so we
Speaker 7: have basically practiced and trained together with all these other
Speaker 7: agencies so that we can act as one large firefighting army,
Speaker 7: and the commanding control and the communications and logistics, everything
Speaker 7: you could think of our firefighters are participated in and
Speaker 7: we can all switch and wear different hats and fill
Speaker 7: in the spots where we need to fill in the.
Speaker 1: Spot Daniel Politics aside, has water been an issue.
Speaker 7: Water has been an issue in certain areas, and it's
Speaker 7: been frustrating to see people with their garden hoses wetting
Speaker 7: down their rooftops and their vegetation. Our firefighters are out
Speaker 7: there and they need that water. The system, which is
Speaker 7: the gravity fed system in the Palace aids fills up
Speaker 7: a tank at the top of the hill and then
Speaker 7: gravity pulls that water down to hydrants. That's where the
Speaker 7: firefighters connect. And what happens is in the morning. People
Speaker 7: get up in the morning, they shower up, and they
Speaker 7: start dipping into that tank that sits at the top
Speaker 7: of the hill using water, watering their lawns, et cetera.
Speaker 7: And as the day progresses, the amount of water that
Speaker 7: is in that tank starts to drop. Throughout the day.
Speaker 7: Night time, people go to bed, and those tanks are
Speaker 7: refilled again with water, and so that cycle is circumvented
Speaker 7: when the amount of water, the demand of water exceeds
Speaker 7: the design and capability of that system. We were drawing
Speaker 7: on four times the capacity of that water system, and
Speaker 7: so we were we were seeing some dry hydrants up
Speaker 7: in the upper hills above pH where they needed them,
Speaker 7: and yeah, it was very frustrating for our firefighters. So
Speaker 7: they had to basically develop an alternate plan and put
Speaker 7: some heart suction and use pools and use other water
Speaker 7: sources to be able to gain water. But it was
Speaker 7: very challenging for them to rely on tank trucks to
Speaker 7: come in and bring them water because, as you know,
Speaker 7: firefighting is a very time sensitive operation and the moment
Speaker 7: you need the water, it needs to be there.
Speaker 2: The conditions appear to be better today and not quite
Speaker 2: as frantic as we saw on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
Speaker 2: What are some of the challenges that are facing firefighters today.
Speaker 7: The challenges remain with the vegetation. The field that's out
Speaker 7: there is dry. It's been dry because of a drought
Speaker 7: we had for over ten years. A lot of that
Speaker 7: vegetation is dead. It doesn't come back to life when
Speaker 7: it rains. We had rains, a lot of rain two
Speaker 7: years ago, and the benefit of that rain was as
Speaker 7: a new crop of grass which has cured and dried
Speaker 7: out and has become a very receptive bed to any spark.
Speaker 7: So that in combination with the fuels and now the
Speaker 7: low humidity and high winds, a lot of people are
Speaker 7: having a false sense of security that well, the winds
Speaker 7: are not as strong and we're we're doing a lot better. Yeah,
Speaker 7: we are doing a lot better than we worked two
Speaker 7: days ago. But we're still in red flight conditions. And
Speaker 7: that means that any new fire that starts is going
Speaker 7: to burn with a lot of energy, and if it's
Speaker 7: in alignment with a hill or a slope, it will
Speaker 7: have some speed behind it, even if the wind is
Speaker 7: not pushing it. So we've seen topographic fires in the
Speaker 7: Palistates area when it's even when you have to do
Speaker 7: when you when you have whole the weather, when you
Speaker 7: have the ocean ocean breeze coming in. We've had a
Speaker 7: fire two years ago, the Palisades fire two or three
Speaker 7: years ago. My brain is not working. It's been going
Speaker 7: without sleep. But we had a fire with the Palisaates
Speaker 7: fire a couple of years ago, and it was cold,
Speaker 7: it was damp, and the fuel still burned because there
Speaker 7: was a vegetation that had not burned in fifty years
Speaker 7: and we were able to stop it from progressing. Well.
Speaker 7: Where we stopped it, that vegetation remained there and it's
Speaker 7: there in very inaccessible areas that cannot be cleared out
Speaker 7: and it's still liable to burn. And we are not
Speaker 7: the only area that that scenario continues to be a
Speaker 7: threat a menace. All our partners throughout the region have
Speaker 7: very similar scenarios with low humidity, with these Santa Ana winds,
Speaker 7: with red Flagh conditions, and they're being challenged as well.
Speaker 7: We had two fires breakout last night, one in Hollywood
Speaker 7: Hills and another one in Studio City, both next to
Speaker 7: a lot of dry, dense vegetation, and we had the
Speaker 7: use of the helicopters and the winds were just not
Speaker 7: in alignment and that made a world of difference to
Speaker 7: be able to hit it hard, hit it fast, and
Speaker 7: get control and extinguish those fires. That's that that happens
Speaker 7: and that's available to us when we have the right formula. Unfortunately,
Speaker 7: two days ago we did not have for you know,
Speaker 7: everything we had the opposite. We had everything that came
Speaker 7: into alignment to have the perfect firestorm, and we still
Speaker 7: have good conditions for a fire. Well not good for us,
Speaker 7: but good conditions for a fire that are is going
Speaker 7: to be for rapid fire growth here in southern California.
Speaker 7: So we're asking people, please, please, please please be careful.
Speaker 7: Now is not the time to cut your vegetation with
Speaker 7: a metal blade device because that can spark and throw
Speaker 7: rocks and start a new fire. People with vehicles driving
Speaker 7: over dry grass, please, you know, think about those things.
Speaker 7: Your hot exhaust touching hot grass is going to start
Speaker 7: a fire. People throwing out their cigarettes out the window,
Speaker 7: that can start a fire because the vegetation is one
Speaker 7: hundred percent receptive. That means that anytime you have a cigarette,
Speaker 7: anything with heat that touches the fuel, it will one
Speaker 7: hundred percent catch fire. We've all tried to start a barbecue,
Speaker 7: and there's times where it's difficult or impossible to get
Speaker 7: your barbecue going. So we squirt all that lighter fluid
Speaker 7: on that right now, you don't need any lighter fluid
Speaker 7: to get any fire going. It will ignite, it will go.
Speaker 1: David thank you so much. Appreciate your time and explaining
Speaker 1: all of that. I really had never had that explain
Speaker 1: to me how fire hydrants work. It was fascinating. David
Speaker 1: Ortiz there, La County Fire excuse me, La City Fire Department.
Speaker 1: Appreciate your time, David.
Speaker 7: Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2: You bet, don't forget you miss any part of our show.
Speaker 2: You can always go back and listen to the podcast.
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